


Burst, Break, Grow Strong

by unintelligiblescreaming



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Background Vrisrezi Shenanigans, Canon-Typical Davekat Rambling, Dubcon or Noncon Moirallegiance, Fluff and Angst, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Gamzee Is An Abusive Moirail, M/M, Meteorstuck, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Pesterlog, Sadstuck with an eventual happy ending, the davekat is a good and healthy relationship, the gamkar is very much not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-07-29 20:40:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7698655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unintelligiblescreaming/pseuds/unintelligiblescreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave is actually really expressive.</p><p>You don’t know how you didn’t notice earlier. You watched him and the other human kids on the viewports all the time, so you don’t understand why you're only just starting to decipher his body language. For all that he tries to keep a bland, disinterested look on his face at all times, you can read him like an open paper-based fiction brick. It's strange how no one else seems to be able to.</p><p>(You used to be able to read Gamzee like that, be able to tell if he was going to be sweet and gentle and when he was going to fly into a rage. You used to hate the anticipation. Now you can't tell at all, and it's worse.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the shade of where the lip bleeds

**Author's Note:**

> warning that this includes some things that are pretty violating, not in a sexual way, but still fairly awful. (not the davekat tho!)

After the first eleven perigees or so, you begin to notice something: Dave is actually really expressive.  
  
You don’t know how you didn’t see it before. You watched him and the other human kids on the viewports all the time, so you don’t understand why you weren’t able to decipher him earlier. For all that he tries to keep a bland, disinterested look on his face at all times, he’s an open paper-based fiction brick. The strangest part is that no one else seems to agree.

CG: ADMITTEDLY HIS FACIAL MUSCLES ONLY MOVE IN THE MOST MINUTE SENSE, BUT THE MOVEMENTS ARE STILL THERE. THERE ISN’T A NET DECREASE IN READABILITY.  
GA: Im Sorry Karkat But I Cannot Agree  
GA: As Far As I Am Concerned Daves Facial Expression Range Is Limited To Either  
GA: Actually  
GA: There Is No Either  
GA: I Cannot Name More Than One Expression That I Have Ever Seen On His Face  
GA: I Do Not Think He Has More Than One  
GA: In Fact I Am Unsure If He Is Biologically Equipped To Handle The Visual Conveyance Of Any Emotion Other Than Stoicism  
CG: KANAYA, NO. YOU HAVE TO BE FUCKING WITH ME HERE. YOU’RE A CARD-CARRYING CERTIFIED MEMBER OF THE NOSY BROADS ON A METEOR CLUB. YOU AND LALONDE AND PYROPE AND SERKET TOGETHER, THE NOSIEST FUCKING BROADS TO EVER ESCAPE THE EXTINCTION OF ALL LIFE ON PLANET ALTERNIA, AND TO MY ETERNAL CHAGRIN, YOU HAVE MANAGED TO OUTNUMBER ME ON THIS METEOR. YOU SPEND UNFATHOMABLE AMOUNTS OF TIME PRYING INTO OTHER PEOPLE’S BUSINESS, YOU CANNOT BE SUGGESTING THAT YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF EXPLICATING THE COMPLETELY UNDISGUISED EMOTIONS THAT CROSS STRIDER’S VISAGE.  
GA: That Is What I Am Suggesting  
GA: I Suppose He Is Not As Guarded In His Text And Speech But Even Then He Is Highly Cryptic  
GA: The Problem Is Made Worse By His Refusal To Display Body Language Cues  
GA: Rose Has Become Frustrated With This On Multiple Occasions  
CG: WHAT, SHE CAN’T READ HIM EITHER? I THOUGHT THEY WERE HUMAN ECTO-RELATIONS.  
GA: That Was My Initial Reaction But It Appears That Human Sibling Relations Are Not Quite The Same As Moirallegiance  
GA: Apparently Mutual Understanding Is Preferable But Not A Prerequisite  
CG: THEN WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE MOTHERGRUB’S DISEASE-RIDDEN PUSTULE-MARKED WASTECHUTE IS A PREREQUISITE, OTHER THAN THE GENETIC CONNECTION?  
GA: Thats It I Think  
  
Your hands go to the keys, already typing out THEN HOW CAN THEY MAINTAIN A SOLID PACIFICATORY RELATIONSHIP IF THE ONLY THING HOLDING THEM TOGETHER IS SHARED GENES and the stream of insults to follow it, but then you hesitate. Your finger finds the delete key. You don’t want to think about moirallegiance right now.  
  
( _his slow smile, canines gleaming, darkness pressing in on all sides, no escape no escape ohgodnoescape_ )  
  
You reiterate to yourself that you do _not_ want to think about moirallegiance right now, especially not the incredible clusterfuck you’ve managed to make out of the only relationship you’ve ever had, and you hate the way your hands are trembling, you hate it so fucking bad.  
  
So you clench your fists and feel your claws dig into your palms. The almost-pain grounds you. You start typing again.  
  
CG: BACK TO THE TOPIC AT HAND: STRIDER, AND HIS RIDICULOUS TRANSPARENCY.  
CG: EVEN IF YOU CAN’T SEE HIS FACIAL EXPRESSIONS, YOU CAN’T CLAIM YOU DON’T SEE THE BODY CUES.  
CG: FOR EXAMPLE: THAT HEAD-TWITCH THING HE DOES.  
CG: YOU KNOW THE ONE.  
GA: I Do Not Know The One  
CG: OF COURSE YOU DO. IT’S THAT AFFRONTED TWITCH OF HIS HEAD THAT HAPPENS WHEN SOMEONE SUGGESTS THAT HE IS LESS THAN COMPLETELY IN CONTROL OF A GIVEN SITUATION, MAKES A DISPARAGING COMMENT ABOUT THOSE RIDICULOUSLY OVERSIZED OCULAR COVERINGS, OR OTHERWISE THREATENS HIS “COOLKID” STATUS.  
GA: If Any Such Head Twitching Has Occurred Than I Havent Seen It  
CG: WHAT ABOUT WHEN HE’S TRYING TO GET AWAY WITH SOMETHING? HE LOOKS DOWN AND AVOIDS CONTACT WITH MY GAZE ORBS AND HIS BODY LANGUAGE BROADCASTS GUILT LIKE HE’S A PORTABLE TRANSMISSION POLE AND HIS ABJECT GUILT IS THE LATEST IMPERIAL PROGRAMMING.  
CG: OR WHEN HE FEELS CHALLENGED AND HIS THORACIC COLUMN STRAIGHTENS UP AND HE HOLDS HIS APPENDAGES TO THE SIDE, HANDS SHIFTING AS IF SEARCHING FOR HIS STRIFE SPECIBUS.  
GA: It Is Fully Possible That This Is All Happening Out Of My Sight And That Is Why We Disagree On This Point  
CG: BUT HE DID THAT WHEN VRISKA SHOWED UP IN THE MOVIE BLOCK TWO NIGHTS AGO AND COMMENCED WITH BEING HER OBNOXIOUS, TERRIBLE SELF, AND YOU WERE THERE FOR THAT.  
CG: …DON’T TELL ME YOU WERE TOO BUSY FLIRTING WITH ROSE TO NOTICE.  
GA: No I Watched The Altercation With Considerable Alarm  
GA: Dave Didnt Seem Very Bothered To Me That Was Why I Was Worried  
GA: He Seemed Rather Oblivious To The Danger Considering If Terezi Were Not There To Physically Remove Vriska From The Block Im Sure Blood Would Have Been Spilt  
GA: Rose Was About To Have A Pusher Attack  
GA: (Mostly Because She Wanted To Deal With Vriska Herself But I Restrained Her Since Far Too Many People On This Meteor Have Died Already)  
CG: WHAT? DAVE WAS ON EDGE THE ENTIRE TIME. I THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO RUSH HER.  
GA: It Is Also Possible You Are Imagining This  
  
You growl under your breath.  
  
CG: I AM NOT FUCKING IMAGINING THIS.  
GA: Then Maybe You Just Pay More Attention To Dave Than Everyone Else Does  
CG: AND IN WHAT SHIT-DRIBBLING UNIVERSE WOULD I WANT TO DO THAT.  
GA: Well You Do Seem To Enjoy Bantering With Him  
GA: And Whatever The Two Of You Get Up To With The Mayor And Your Cans And Chalk Drawings  
CG: WELL, FUCKING DUH, WHO ELSE IS GOING TO MAINTAIN CANTOWN AND PROPERLY APPRECIATE THE MAYOR’S UTTER CUTENESS? IT’S ONE OF THE FEW ACTIVITIES STRIDER IS ACTUALLY COMPETENT AT.  
GA: See You Referred To The Mayor As Cute  
GA: Before You Began Spending Time With Dave That Word Would Never Have Crossed Your Lips Without A Fight  
CG: FUCK YOU, I CAME TO MY EPIPHANY ABOUT THE MAYOR’S EXTRAORDINARY ADORABLENESS ONE HUNDRED PERCENT FREE OF INFLUENCE FROM SHADES-WEARING DOUCHES.  
GA: Rose Says The Name For This Is Denial  
CG: …  
CG: IF YOUR ALIEN GIRLFRIEND IS READING THIS CONVERSATION OVER YOUR SHOULDER AND GIVING YOU SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO RESPOND, THEN THIS HUSKTOP IS ON ITS WAY TO A FATAL COLLISION WITH THE WALL.  
GA: No  
GA: Its Just That She Has Observed Your Behavior On More Than One Occasion And Often Whispers Commentary To Me  
CG: OH, THAT’S JUST FUCKING GREAT! I FEEL TOTALLY COMFORTABLE WITH THIS NEW PIECE OF INFORMATION! THIS IS NOT CREEPY AT ALL!  
GA: I Dont Understand Your Difficulty Here I Mean It Is Clear That You Watch Daves Behavior Frequently And It Seems Only Mildly Creepy To Me  
GA: And You Are Currently Making Comments To Me As Well  
CG: I’M EXITING THIS CONVERSATION NOW.  
  
\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA] \--  
  
You slam the husktop shut with more force than strictly necessary. The table shakes slightly. You’re sure the device would have broken already if you weren’t such a weak and useless piece of shit.  
  
( _so scared, can’t even fight back, his shape looming over you, he could snap you in half and your blood is already dripping onto the floor, breakable, so weak, can’t do anything right_ )  
  
You captchalogue your husktop and rub at the circles under your oculars. It’s frustrating, somehow, knowing that there are things about Dave that you understand and you don’t know why it’s only you. Like there’s a truth just outside your grasp, and you keep reaching, except instead of getting a hold on it you just fall on your face. Like Kanaya and Rose and Terezi and even maybe Vriska all know what’s up with you, but they’re not telling, they’re watching you flounder and snickering behind their hands.  
  
As if on cue, someone is banging at your door.  
  
You jump. You didn’t even hear them coming down the hall— _oh fuck fuckfuckfuck_ —but no, you don’t have to be scared, it’s just Dave, it has to be, he always walks so silently.  
  
(So does Gamzee, but no, he wouldn’t knock, wouldn’t bother with the door or the courtesy, he’d come from behind when it’s dark and you’re alone or asleep, wake you up by whispering _shh, sweet dreams, peaceful dreams_ , and when you startle awake and try to scramble away he’d twist your arms behind your back, drag a claw down the side of your neck, smudge the blood across your skin with a thumb and hiss _trying to RUN, motherfucker?_ )  
  
You groan loudly, so Dave knows how long-suffering and gracious you are in dealing with his presence, and get up to answer it. When you crack open the door, he’s slouching slightly, hands in his pockets. It’s a pose you’re familiar with: not worried about anything serious, just here to hang out.  
  
“Sup.”  
  
“Strider, we have this conversation every fucking time. You ask me what ‘sup,’ in your truncated and obtuse manner, and my response is to inform you that you can take your ‘sup’ and cram it into whichever orifice I choose to elaborate on at that point. Which will it be this time?” You pretend to rest your hand on your chin. “Hmm, I’ve already gone on at length about the cramming possibilities of your wastechute, your facegash, your auditory flaps, your ocular skull holes… oh, right, I remember now, I haven’t yet expressed my deep distaste for your nasal punctures. In that case, I gladly invite you to remove your ‘sup’ from my presence and cram it up your nasal punctures. Please, for the sake of the sanity of every sentient being on this meteor, shove it so far up your scent passages that it comes in contact with your brainsponge and results in a fatal hemorrhage, or failing that, severe damage to whichever particular part of your pan is reserved for formulating speech topics.”  
  
“Whoa, Kitkat, gotta cool your hateboner there,” he drawls… in exactly the same way, with exactly the same tone, and using exactly the same words that he does every. Fucking. Time.  
  
And your regularly scheduled response is to give him your best glare and announce that his pathetic lack of knowledge about proper troll quadrants is stomach-churning, so you open your mouth to do just that.  
  
Except then you see Dave’s expression twitch slightly, and the set of his shoulders and his frown kills the playful mood you will grudgingly admit you were cultivating. You pause, and before you can ask what’s wrong he blurts out, “You okay?”  
  
He sounds so worried and scared that it startles you. “I. Yes. Of course I, I’m fucking fine, what, why are you asking?”  
  
“Your hands are trembling.”  
  
You look down. Fuck, he's right, the tremors are still running up and down your fingers. You scowl at him and stuff your hands into your sweater pockets. “Shut the fuck up.”  
  
“Didn’t mean it as an insult,” he says quietly. “You seem kind of tired, I thought—”  
  
“Oh don’t do that, Strider, it’ll hurt your pan,” you snap.  
  
He’s supposed to bounce back effortlessly with a retort and a long-winded metaphor, because that’s what always happened, that’s who he is. His shoulders aren’t supposed to hunch inward like he’s trying to make himself smaller. Regret starts knotting in loops in your stomach.  
  
“Look, the others haven’t said anything, I think they might not have noticed, but I don’t think you’ve slept for, like, seventy-two hours, and I get that trolls are different and all that jazz but you do _not_ seem okay,” he says all in a rush, with none of his usual affected twang. “You jump at small sounds and you growl at people more than usual, even Kanaya and you usually don’t swear at Kanaya like the rest of us, and you freaked out when I accidentally bumped into you yesterday—”  
  
“Strider—”  
  
“And you haven’t been eating enough either, I was with you basically all of today and yesterday and the day before that and you barely had two meals, and that I definitely know isn’t a weird troll thing,” he continues.  
  
“Strider.”  
  
“Yeah I know this is stepping _way_ outside proper bro code and maybe even that monorail quadrant that I don’t even get properly, but I’m really worried,” he says, looking down at the ground.  
  
His voice is filled with such earnestness, and there’s an edge of nervousness to it that you’re not sure you understand. Maybe it’s rooted in something else? You don’t know how asking someone if they’re feeling okay could be so nerve-wracking. Maybe you’re just that bad at interacting with people without ruining their lives.  
  
“I am perfectly fine, and what I do is none of your goddamn business. Now what the fuck did you want?”  
  
“You’re _not fine_ —I can _tell_ , Karkat, you’re all messed up about something, and you are definitely _not okay_ , you’re so not okay that okay is, is, is, is a thing that you are n _ot_ —”  
  
Fuckdammit, you hate this, you hate this so much. Dave is supposed to be…  
  
You don’t even know what Dave is supposed to be. He’s human, so he doesn’t care about your blood. He doesn’t understand moirallegiance, so he can’t judge you for being a bad palemate. Kanaya was always cleaning up other people’s messes and never had enough time for you, and now she has Rose and she’s happy and you’re a side note for her, as always. Terezi keeps choosing to disappear with Vriska into distant corners of the meteor, and it fucking hurts that she’d rather spend quality time with the troll she was willing to murder half a sweep ago than interact with you.  
  
But with Dave you can just... play dumb video games, and trade insults, and try not to laugh at the stupid shit he does. He lets you escape the clusterfuck you’ve made of your life and become Karkat Vantas, The Guy Who Has No (Or At Least Fixable) Problems for a couple hours. He annoys you half to death but he’s _safe_ , and you hate that he's asking awkward questions you can’t answer.  
  
(And you can’t explain, you can’t, you can’t tell him that you can’t sleep because you spend the day watching the vent on the other side of the room, curled into a ball, frozen and shaking, waiting to hear the faint metal clanking, terrified that _he_ might come closer and seek you out.)  
  
(You don’t want Dave to know that you’re such a fuckup that you have to be afraid of your own palemate.)  
  
You realize that he’s broken off mid-sentence and is staring at you desperately, mouth moving like he’s searching for words but he can’t find any. You cross your arms and stare him down as best as you can. Your reflection in his ocular coverings looks small and ridiculous.  
  
He stands there, searching your face as if he can find an answer there, for a long time. At least sixty seconds. Then he shakes his head minutely, defeated. His posture returns to its ordinary cocky slouch, and he says—voice subdued, but much less than before—“Alright then, you want me to get off your grill, that’s fine, look at me vacating your grill, this grill is getting vacated so fast it’s like your grill is in the middle of the lawn at the neighborhood potluck and I’m a hot dog that’s badly overdone at this point, poor me, none of the kids on the block will wanna lather me in ketchup and stuff me down their gullets now.”  
  
You roll your eyes. “I have no idea which part of my body and/or item in my personal space bubble my ‘grill’ is supposed to be. I have a similar level of incomprehension for this ‘potluck.’ I am also perfectly aware of the extremely low probability that any of what you just uttered made any sense in any cultural context whatsoever.” So are the two of you back to normal…?  
  
“Please, you’re just jealous of all the sweet sense-making that’s going on over here, I’m pouring out such a majestic stream of beautiful sense that I’m practically a logic manufacturing plant being operated by disadvantaged little kids in a third-world country. It’s way cheaper to outsource logic labor, did you know? That’s why psychologists and Lalondes and Maryams exist, because it’s cheaper to have someone else make all the sense for you. Like right now, for example. I’m like twenty percent sure I heard Rose say something like that. Logic is fuckin’ impeccable yo.”  
  
The tension in your shoulders drains away. You _are_ back to normal. “Strider, you can take your ‘yo’ and shove it into the same place you can shove that ‘sup.’”  
  
He shoots you two finger pistols and says in a deadpan voice, “Insert wink here.”  
  
You slap his hands down. “Argh! What did you come here for, anyway?”  
  
He makes a tiny movement that you classify as the Strider Microshrug. “…wanna play Mariokart?”  
  
You can tell that he’s not saying what he wants to say. It’s in his stance and the tension lining his arms; he looks like he wants to draw his sword and fight something, but there’s no boss to face down. The knowledge that he’s like this out of concern and care for you… makes something flutter in your stomach, in spite of the sick awfulness that you twists in your guts constantly nowadays.  
  
“Uh, yeah,” you say, throat dry. “Let’s do that.”  
  



	2. Chapter 2

  
Dave’s been putting on more and more exaggeratedly deadpan gestures in a way that clearly broadcasts a deep discomfort at something, but you can’t figure out what. The only thing that’s happening is the two of you playing a dumb video game and arguing with each other. You are definitely leaning against his side a lot more than usual, though, so you wonder if that’s the issue for a moment, but he’s not trying to pull away. If anything, he’s relaxing into the touch.  
  
You get through several rounds of Mariokart—Strider keeps _winning,_ that absolute bulgehumper with his goddamn superior reflexes—before you start to get tired. Not that you weren’t tired before, but now you find yourself struggling to hold the controller.  
  
Once your ocular shutters start drooping, however, Dave’s attitude switches to worry. His method of communicating this is to say, “Hey princess, don’t go falling asleep on my couch now, ‘cause I sure as hell ain’t carrying you back to bed,” but his shoulders are hunched slightly and he’s turning in your direction and that’s Strider-ese for _I am expressing genuine concern now._  
  
You snort. “Please, to go by your miserable performance throughout the last few hours, the only one with a one-way ticket to a dream bubble is you. If I didn’t know better I’d say it was a result of falling asleep and letting your disgustingly pale visage smash against the buttons.”  
  
It’s an automatic response more than anything, since you’re a little surprised that you have it in you to act so openly exhausted, considering the sick, nervous feeling that haunts your insides fairly constantly nowanights. Especially in the presence of someone that could potentially do you harm. You’re painfully aware of how utterly fucked you would be if Dave or any of the other godtiers tried to attack you, and even if that weren’t true, a troll’s only real safe places to sleep are with their lusus or their quadrants.  
  
Dave isn’t any of those things, but… well.  
  
You’re not sure how good humans’ sense of smell is, since the ones on the meteor haven’t brought it up and the movies and books you downloaded from the human internet ignore the subject altogether. You wonder vaguely if it’s some kind of cultural taboo, like the sexuality thing. It’s possible that their sense of smell isn’t very highly evolved, like their stunted romantic capacities, but considering the way Dave’s scent affects you? You doubt their scent is _that_ limited.  
  
Dave’s warmth disappears from your side as he gets up and turns off the human inorganically based electronics. You’re half-hoping he’ll come back and sit down next to you, but instead he starts moving around his respiteblock, fiddling with his sound equipment and generally acting restless. “So, what next?” you ask, even though you really don’t want to get up.  
  
It’s a small meteor, and at the beginning of your journey (when you were all edgy about being separated due to the recent murders and near-murders) you all stuck close together, so stale scents overlapping all over the place was a natural result. With Terezi’s habit of slobbering over everything in grabbing distance you’d gotten used to her oddly odorless tang coating the furniture, but at one point you ended up with your block absolutely stinking of Vriska’s sniffer-burning acrid stench due to _mysterious shenanigans_ involving _your belongings_ which the Scourge Sisters _refused to answer questions about_ and instead just _giggled and traded mysterious and worrying glances_. Naturally, you’d flipped the fuck out, insert overused handle metaphor, etcetera.  
  
But usually trolls don’t smell like anything at all, unless you’re trapped in an enclosed space with them, with no air circulation, for eleven and a half goddamn perigees.  
  
There are exceptions. Sometimes there are trolls with whom your instincts just shout _safe safe safe,_ and any block they’ve entered or thing they’ve touched will smell like safety to you. It’s the mark of a stable quadrant, or at least it’s supposed to be.  
  
When Dave and Rose first came to the meteor, Dave smelled bland and unmemorable. And then you started being friends, or whatever you wanted to call it, and one night he knocked at your respiteblock door and when you opened it, you took a breath and he smelled like apples and fresh soil and a faint tinge of gasoline.  
  
You know what gasoline is like only from that one time you ventured into the city when you were much, much younger and Alternia was still a thing, but Dave’s presence brings the memory back so strongly that you could almost smell the asphalt and hear the personal mobile vehicles and feel the heat beating down on your face from the dark sky above.  
  
(Gamzee’s never smelled like anything to you. Not even the faintest of traces. It’s like he’s an empty spot, a black hole, and when he leaves there are no marks left to show he was there, and when it’s dark and cold and you’re shivering and everything feels _wrong_ all over your skin, it makes you doubt what your memory tells you.)  
  
You’ve been lost in your thoughts for a significant chunk of time, but you’re snapped abruptly back into reality when you hear Dave finish off a sentence with the word “slumber party.”  
  
You blink. You shake your head, wondering if perhaps you heard him wrong. Then, when your auditory recollection informs you that no mistake was made when it came to spoken syllable analysis, you turn around and say, “What?”  
  
“—aww, Vantas, you only just tuned in? Come on, you missed ten whole minutes of prime material you could totally have used in a hilarious rant about why I’m wrong about everything,” he says. “I was just saying that Rose has insomnia problems too, so why not have a reverse slumber party, where instead of staying up ’til 3 A.M. and playing emotionally damaging games of truth or dare, the two of you could just alchemize some sleeping bags and sleep for eleven hours get a fuckin’ good night's rest for once.”  
  
Wow. This particular case of Patented Strider Hoofbeastshit requires a specialized response. Shocked, taken aback expression which quickly morphs into a scorching glare: go.  
  
“Strider, I barely know where to start with that magnificent clusterfuck of social faux pas you just committed. Oh wait, that’s a lie, I know. First off, why in paradox space would you just open your shit-overflowing facegash and allow that to spill out? Why would you casually suggest that I engage in an extremely intimate ashen encounter, in which I skip the romantic foreplay and just go ahead and _fall asleep in the presence of the other participants,_ just right off the bat? Second, why would you do all of that as well as implying that I should have this extremely intimate ashen encounter with only one person? Why?” You take a breath—a rare occurrence in your daily life—before you launch into the most important part of your objection. “And third, why the turdspinning fuck would I want to do that with _Rose Lalonde?_ That is one terrifying alien you won’t find me sleeping next to in the entire length of your miserable civilization’s existence.”  
  
What ensues is a long and awkward minute of silently staring at each other, during which you note that Dave’s body language projects “confused as fuck,” and increasingly so. Finally he pushes his ocular shades further up the bridge of his nose and says, “This is another kay-ay-dee-ay-cee-cee-em, isn’t it.”  
  
You growl threateningly under your breath. Last week you and Dave were trading barbs to each other during one of the meteor’s rare communal gatherings, and you got a little carried away and forgot about everyone else in the block… and then Terezi interrupted an especially good rant of yours to announce that she’d coined the term KADACCM, or K4RK4T 4ND D4VE 4MUS1NG CULTUR3 CL4SH M1SUND3RST4ND1NG, to the tune of Vriska snorting uncontrollably. If Dave starts using it too, you’re going to find an exposed spot on the meteor’s surface and build an extremely tall structure out of empty cans solely for the purpose of flinging yourself off it.  
  
“After eleven months on a space rock you’d think you would have gained a basic knowledge of Earth culture by now,” Dave continues, as if this ridiculousness is somehow your fault, did he just fucking—? yeah he fucking did, okay it is fucking _on_ now. Your face scrunches up in affronted fury.  
  
Here is what could happen:  
  
You could proceed to painstakingly explain why Dave is _wrong,_ because he is the wrongest fucking wrongster, it is him. Then, seamlessly, you could transition to explaining how a “slumber party” is the traditional Alternian expression of ultimate devotion to your ashmates—in which two dysfunctionally hateful individuals, who would destroy each other if left unchecked, are encouraged to lay bare personally traumatizing truths and fulfill terribly humiliating dares, thereby cementing their undying trust and mild fear of their auspistice. You would complete your speech with an explanation of how the ultimate ashen act is to sleep unguarded in the presence of the other hostile leaf, trusting their third quadrantmate to keep vigil over their heads.  
  
Then Dave would probably be an ass about it, as usual, and make numerous jokes comparing it to redrom sex and human genitalia, and you would respond with a pair of raised middle grasping digits and painstakingly explain why he’s an idiot. It would be another great Strider-Vantas interaction, and you would likely have much more fun than you would ever admit aloud.  
  
That is not what happens.  
  
What happens is that there’s an auditory-canal-rupturing mechanical whine, like someone tuning a microphone at the beginning of a concert but with the volume turned up far too high, and then obnoxious laughter screeches out from wherever the fucking hidden speakers are.  
  
Hidden. Speakers.  
  
“Ahhhhhahahahahahaha, you two are the _best!_ ” Vriska squeals. It’s such a horrifying sound that you think you can feel your pan matter dribbling from your ears. “Aww, and you’re using our acronym too.”  
  
“Highly adorable, I quite concur,” says Terezi, each few words punctuated by a fit of cackle-snorting.  
  
You and Dave look at each other. It’s the “oh Jegus not this” look. You’ve been wearing it a lot whenever those two are involved.  
  
“The fuck, Terezi?!” you say, gesturing angrily. “I was expecting this shit from Serket, but from you?”  
  
“Yeah, dude, shit is not cool,” says Dave, head tilted microscopically upward. “Shit is downright heated. The electricity bill just keeps climbing. The landlord is not gonna be happy about the rent situation this month, that’s how uncool I’m talking.”  
  
“Unfortunately, Miss Blueberry, this is less than optimal,” Terezi continues, completely ignoring you. “The two-way audio link was supposed to access an entirely different member of our motley little crew! It seems calibrations are in order.”  
  
“Yeeeaahh, these guys are no fun to freak out. We’ve got other business to attend to,” agrees Vriska.  
  
There’s another high-pitched mechanical whine, and then silence.  
  
Well, then.  
  
“So, wanna help me pick through this room for microphones?” Dave says.  
  
  
* * * *  
  
  
The two of you don’t find any speakers or microphones, so you conclude that they must have been trying out some weird luck/mind power combo. Or at least you hope that was the explanation, since the other options are much scarier to think about.  
  
A few hours later, you’re back on the couch. There’s nothing on the screen. Instead you’re just sitting and talking quietly, both struggling with the sleepiness dragging at your muscles. Dave isn’t looking at you, so you sneak looks at him, marveling at how transparent he is when he’s tired.  
  
You were talking about… something unimportant, you don’t even fucking remember, and after a while there’s a lull in the conversation. Then suddenly he raises a hand floppily in the air in the least controlled hand-gesture you’ve seen him make and says, “Just fuck it.”  
  
“Oh really Strider? What intangible concept are we fucking this time?” Your words are slurring all together and your ocular lids are threatening to close.  
  
Another vague hand gesture. “All of this. Just the, the whole meteor purgatory bullshit. It seemed big the first few weeks but it’s fuckin’ tiny, I don’t know what I was thinking. I keep… like… making… safe spaces and shit, and it’s just suddenly colonized or some shit by another tiny meteor dweller.”  
  
“’m not tiny,” you mumble.  
  
“You’re short. No, but. Can’t fucking feel safe or fucking… _talk_ about shit.”  
  
Your comprehension isn’t the greatest at the moment, but his meaning gets across to you. “Me too,” you venture. It might just be the shortest sentence you’ve said in two days.  
  
“Yeah. I. Uh.” He runs out of words and stares at his feet.  
  
“Feel safe with _you_ ,” you offer, and then your mouth catches up with your filter and you go bright red, _oh fuck fuck fuck why did I SAY that—_  
  
Dave stands up suddenly, knocking his blanket to the floor. “You should go back to your room,” he says loudly, arms away from his body, stance wide, on the defensive.  
  
“I—”  
  
You can’t think of any words to salvage the smoking wreck you just made out of your friendship.  
  
“Go!” Dave says, voice getting louder. You jump, spine prickling instinctively ( _Gamzee’s voice would be so soft and sweet and then he’d get loud and scary and_ ), and then you run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the sudden vrisrezi, but, like... life on the meteor with vriska and terezi must have been HELL with those two in cahoots. they're constantly up to their necks in scheming and neither of them have any sense of personal space whatsoever. it's a disaster waiting to happen. 
> 
> (fun fact: the thing they're doing is of actual plot relevance, and so is everything else casually mentioned about them.)

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter titles are from the songs "all our bruised bodies and the whole heart shrinks" and "You and I in Unison" by La Dispute (they're the last two songs on their album and the second one reacts v interestingly to the previous one).
> 
>  
> 
> _Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking, one day there will be nothing at all?_  
>  _And how long does it take—am I better off just bursting or breaking?_  
>  _Cause I don't see this heart getting strong._  
>  _Everyone in the world comes at some point to suffering_  
>  _(I wonder when I will, I wonder)_  
>  _Everyone is out searching for someone or something_  
>  _(I wonder what I'll find, I wonder)_
> 
> _And when I sing, don't I sing your name out right at the same time I sing my own?_  
>  _Until I die, I will sing our names in unison._  
>  _Until I die, I will sing our names in unison._


End file.
